by Jerry eBooks
Because the sorrel had brains, she stopped before she had utterly exhausted herself. Suddenly she shot out, belly to ground, racing for the foothills and the spring. Jimmy gave her a taste of spur, a touch of quirt and, when she flagged at the first rise of the foothills, he whaled her for her own good. For her own good also he checked her drinking at the spring where she stood at last with heaving flanks and drooping neck.
“Course you’re hot,” he said. “So’m I. Me, I can take and drink all the water I want though I ain’t stuck much on it as a beverage. But you’ll founder yo’se’f. Right now I ain’t much use for you, you catamountin’, side-jumpin’, frawg hoppin’ acrobat, but you’re wo’th somethin’ an’ I can’t afford to lose nothin’ the way things are goin’. So you’ll finish yo’ drink afteh you’ve cooled down a bit.
“If you an’ me had give thet exhibition of plain an’ fancy, grand an’ lofty ridin’ at the Fair over to Cheyenne they’d sure have handed us the champeenship belt an’ purse. You’re the original shimmyin’ sorrel, I’ll say. Doggone it, I wish I had a chaw.”
He consoled himself with a cigarette as he looked about to get his bearings. He wanted something to bite down on hard whenever he thought of how the girl had treated him. Not jilted exactly, because there was nothing really definite between them, nothing to announce, but to throw down a dance escort as she had was to make the man a fool. Jimmy had cooled down a bit, for all his buckriding. The rush of the wind against their speed, the pure ozone of it in his lungs, had brought his blood close to normal though he was still sore of spirit.
He looked out across the sage, silver gray across the mesquite, waving dark under the breeze, to where Bitter Creek gleamed like a silver wire before the cottonwoods closed in upon its banks. There the dance was still going on—Helen Faulkner one-stepping with Buck or sitting it out on the gallery. Up here on the mesa it was calm and cool and the air was sweet with herbs. It seemed a long, long way that he had come. Jimmy looked up at the Arizona stars, serene and silver, so quiet that they looked like stars of silver paper stuck upon the field of deep blue.
“It’s sure a pretty night,” he soliloquized, and his resentment ebbed still further. “Pretty an’ peaceful,” he said as he ground the butt of his cigarette beneath one heel preparatory to mounting. “If it hadn’t been Buck! Ever sence they ‘lected him sheriff he reckons he owns the county.”
The fact that Jimmy had run against Buck Stetson and lost by a wider margin than he had figured on winning with had something to do with that sore spot. It had rankled against his old-time partner; it had left him quick and tender to Buck’s latest victory. Up to the present, while Helen Faulkner had shown no signs of actual surrender to any one man in Mesquite County—and all its bachelors were suitors for her hand—she had seemingly favored him, so far as he and many others could see.
It wasn’t easy to woo Helen Faulkner. Old man Faulkner was as standoffish as a barrel cactus. He openly vowed that there was no man in the county good enough to catch a hawss fo’ Helen and that he would open negotiations with any who came courting without his consent with a shotgun. Which made the Faulkner ranch far from a popular place of call, despite the charms of the girl. If Jimmy saw her twice a month he figured he was doing well. Equally he did not know who else she saw, nor how often. He had held the idea that he had far outdistanced Buck in this contest, and now Helen had given him the mitten in the plain sight of the dancehall! Other girls had seen the way she acted. Two of them—darn ’em—had tittered when Jimmy left after Buck’s triumphant entrance.
“Shucks.” Jimmy attempted to dismiss the matter in the word. He swung to the saddle with the sorrel acting mildly, all the superfluous steam out of her. He was quite a ways from the U—U, and the shortest cut led through the holding of old Titus Williams—T. W. standing for Tight Wad mortgage holder and stock and land banker to the county. Jimmy was a debtor of Titus, the note was due within none too many days and it was a toss up whether he could meet it, a sure cinch that Williams would not renew it. Jimmy’s security had been too good. Against one thousand dollars gone for fencing and labor, he had put up fifty three-year-old shorthorn steers in prime condition. They had been only two-year-olds when the deal was made. Money was tight and he had to go to Titus Williams. Old Tight Wad was as tender in a bargain as nut-crackers are in the hands of a man who wants to get at the meat in the kernel. Whenever a new settler appeared in Mesquite County Williams would visit them. If they needed a team, as was often the case, Williams supplied them and took a mortgage on everything but their souls—and usually blighted them before he got through with them. Did they want to build a house? He accommodated them and owned them unless they paid him up. Some did and hated him. More did not and hated him correspondingly harder.
When things were sold up, as they often were, Titus would bid them in at his own rate, bulldozing any attempts to lift the price to market rates by his grip on the community at large. If he was not let alone somebody suffered. He was the most generally disliked and hated man in a radius of a hundred and fifty miles. “There must be a separate hell for Tight Wad and men of his caliber,” one evicted rancher had said bitterly. “Put him and his like in the reg’lar place and Satan ‘ud vacate. If they put him on the grill he’d stink the place out.”
Jimmy had those three-year-olds as good as sold to the Fort, but the military authorities moved slowly and inspection had twice been put off. A date had been set tentatively. If they passed on that day it left him only three for the vouchers to go through and the check to pass. That was not enough but, if the deal was closed, he might be able to borrow from someone else and pay off Titus Williams. Otherwise there would be protest and foreclosure and Titus triumphantly bidding the cattle in for a fifth of what they were worth. And that would be about the wind-up of the U—
U. You simply could not run a ranch without working capital. Jimmy had tried and he had come close to running it into the ground.
All this was reason why he had not pressed his suit with Helen to the proposal point. Her father knew, all the county knew for that matter, that Williams held his note. Such things were public record and current gossip. And Buck, with his capacity for making money, was more acceptable in her eyes than the financially embarrassed Jimmy. A wave of anger came back. His ears got hot and his fists balled.
“Darn his ornery hide!” he muttered, as the sorrel stopped at the Williams line fence.
Owing Titus money did not mean that Jimmy Pringle could not or would not crosscut over the T. W. holding. He rode along the fence, found an opening, manipulated it and readjusted the wire after he had passed through. The T. W. range, atop the mesa, was good grazing land, rolling but fairly level, though deep gullied here and there. The ranch-house and buildings were in a natural basin where a small creek ran down into a cement tank. There were trees about the place, but the orange light of a window in the ranch-house shone brightly through a gap.
“Must be all of midnight,” said Jimmy, glancing up at the Big Dipper, and speaking half to himself, half to his horse, rider fashion. “Reckon the old miser is castin’ up his profits, the scaly old hell dodger. I s’pose he counts me in as—”
There came the sharp, staccato cough of a rifle shot, broadening as it echoed in the little basin and back from the farther hills. It suddenly seemed to fill the night with sound and menace. Through the report came the faint tinkle of breaking glass, the sharp cry of a man. And the light in the window disappeared.
The cry had been unmistakably in Williams’ naturally harsh voice. Jimmy, setting spurs to the sorrel, racing down toward the house, had not the slightest doubt that someone had shot the usurer from ambush, aiming at his figure as it showed through the window. Jimmy knew the room and its furnishings only too well; no blind to the window—blinds are not needed where the nearest neighbor is a mile away—a table close up to the casement, the lamp on it. Back of the lamp the old man footing up his figures. He pictured it all as the sorrel flew and his eyes searched the sides of the basin for s
ome evidence of the assassin. The shot had come from ahead. He had not seen the flash, but he fancied it had come from the rim of the basin to his right. The flush of a rising moon, not yet above distant peaks, showed in the cast, but in the starlight it was hard to distinguish motionless shapes.
The bullet must have gone straight through window and lamp. The flame might have been the thing the murderer sighted on, seeing the old man back of it.
“Probably got him through the head,” said Jimmy, all his sympathies changing swiftly toward the man. Yet there were a dozen men who might have done it and considered themselves justified. Which they were not, to Jimmy’s mind. Only a man sent crazy by misfortune could find any excuse. There was one such, who——
His night-used eyes saw—or thought they saw—a dark figure streaking between brush and trees on the slope whence the shot had been fired. He was not sure, and it was too long range for any hope of a pistol bullet finding target.
The first thing to do was to see how badly the old man was hurt. He might not have been killed outright. Time enough after that to trail the shooter.
As he flung himself from the saddle, leaving the sorrel anchored by trailing reins, the golden light in the east strengthened. If the shot had been held off for five minutes Jimmy must infallibly have had a good view of the man running off. But that might have been calculated upon though the assassin could not have reckoned upon any one riding across the holding at that time of night.
In the starlight Jimmy could see the splintered pane where the bullet had gone through, a round hole showing black, starred about with cracks that glinted like the rays of a jewel. A veranda, three steps high, ran along the front of the house. Gun in hand, Jimmy mounted to this and tried the door. It was closed tight. It had a spring latch and a patent key, an unusual lock for a ranch-house, but not for a man like Titus Williams. Running along the veranda to the window Jimmy smashed in panes and frame with the butt of his gun, then reaching up, released the catch and opened up. He crawled in over the table, careful of the splintered glass of window and lamp. His hand came into contact with a puddle of warm liquid that dripped darkly from his fingers as he lifted them. The air reeked with kerosene.
Swiftly he found the chair where Williams must have sat and slid to the floor, alert, listening, feeling for a match. Dressed in his best for the dance, he had neglected to carry his usual supply. He had taken a few from the bar at the Gopher Saloon but they were all gone except half a one. He had shifted his gun to his left hand as he made the search. Now he dubiously started to light the broken match. Through the window he could see the moon struggling through a screen of trees. The interior of the house was black and silent, ominous. Somewhere a clock was ticking and there was the steady drip of something from table to floor. On that floor the match would show him Williams—unless the old man had not been killed outright and had crawled away. There was a telephone in the next room, also Williams’ bedroom. The money lender was on the Ranchers’ Automatic System, to keep in touch with his affairs. And he kept the phone in his inner room so that he could talk without visitors overhearing.
Jimmy had felt about gingerly with his foot on the floor near the table before the match sputtered up. But he had touched nothing and he saw little. The match was faulty and went out almost immediately. But not before he saw his left hand streaming with scarlet.
Jimmy softly cursed his luck, his lack of foresight in not providing matches. Now he must either grope about for some, or wait for the moon to help him locate another lamp and find the body. All this time the murderer was getting farther away from the scene of his crime. If Williams was still alive he was unable to groan. If he was conscious he must have heard the forced entrance.
But the murderer would leave a trail. With the swift vision of the warm crimson stuff he had glimpsed on his hand strong upon him, Jimmy hardened into resolve to follow that trail and hunt the man down as if he had been a sheep-killing dog. In the meantime where had Williams kept his matches? Likely by the stove. The old man did not smoke, even at the expense of others.
The room lightened. A ray of light came from the moon, rising free of the trees. It beamed through the room and struck the pad of a calendar hanging on the wall. The big figures showed plainly 13, as if the lamp of the heavens sought to mutely testify to the date of so foul a crime. Jimmy was not superstitious, but the effect was startling. Involuntarily he glanced at the window. A man stood outside on the veranda, one hand on the frame. Face and figure were in the shadow that projected across the table. Jimmy could not see what was held in the right hand but he guessed. And he knew the voice. It was that of Buck Stetson, sheriff of Mesquite County.
“Put up yore hands, Pringle! Drop yore gun on the table. Hurry now!”
Jimmy reacted swiftly. Even in the shock of surprise he noted the “Pringle.” It was official. Never before had Buck called him anything but Jimmy. He knew the quality of tone in that command as he knew the man back of the gun. It was not to be monkeyed with. Resentment flaring high, he let his gun fall to the table and put his hands, palms even with his shoulders.
“A little higher, Pringle. I’m comin’ in. Stand away from that chair.”
Stetson was taking no chances and he was a good mind reader. Jimmy had intended to smash him with the chair if there was the slightest chance as he came through the window. Now he stood back and laughed.
“What’s the idea, Buck Stetson? Tryin’ to make a repytation? I left you to the dance. You damned fool,” he broke out, “don’t act like a movie sheriff! There’s murder been done here. Someone shot old man Williams through the window.”
“So I guessed,” said Stetson dryly. He had negotiated the window and now stood with his back to it against the edge of the table. The moonlight was fair in Jimmy’s face and on his body from the waist up. Stetson had retrieved his gun. “I heard the shot, or rather, the echoes of it,” Buck went on, “as I rode up toward the ranch. Yore hawss nickered to mine as I topped the rise. The moon come up an’ I saw the busted window. You know the rest.”
“I know as much as you do,” said Jimmy hotly. Buck must have trailed him from the dance, he figured hastily. But why? “I was crossin’ the holding and I heard the shot same as you. I found a hole in the window where I saw the light go out from the creek-head. I busted it in, findin’ the door locked. I had ha’f a match and I was lookin’ to find Williams an’ fix him, if I c’ud, befo’ I chased after the man you’re lettin’ git away from you.”
“I reckon you fixed Williams,” said Stetson. “Look at yore bloody fingers.”
“Don’t be a bigger jackass than God made you, Stetson! You don’t think I murdered him, do you? Why man, it was a rifle shot. You must know that! I haven’t got a rifle, ‘cept the one back to the ranch.”
“I cudn’t tell what kind of a shot it was with the echoes mussin’ it up.” Stetson broke Jimmy’s gun swiftly across his knee, sending the ejected shells on the table. He picked up an emptied cartridge.
“What’d you fire this at?” he asked and sniffed at the barrel that still held the acrid scent of discharged powder. All the time he kept Jimmy covered.”
“I fired at a jack on the road out,” said Jimmy. But his voice faltered as he spoke with the swift tremor of his mind as he realized the net of circumstances that trammeled him.
“Kill it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I reckon you’d better not talk any, Pringle. You leave the dancehall, sneak off soon as I arrive. It’s known you owed Williams a note chances are you can’t meet, and which’ll break you up ranching. It’s known you’ve spoken strong things against him. I find you red-handed, yore gun fired off recent and—I find you here. What did you do with the body?”
Jimmy went wild with helpless rage. “Hell!” he cried. “You and yore star! You and yore gun! You’re so damned smart and so damned eager to get something on me. Did she turn you down? And what brought you kitin’ out here? Williams voted against you. You and him have bad words
more’n once. How do I know you didn’t pull this thing yorese’f an’ come back to turn the tables on the man who showed up befo’ yore trail was cold on the getaway? How do I know yore gun ain’t fired or that you ain’t got a rifle hid up on the hill? You got the drop on me, that’s all. Go an’ find Williams yorese’f. He ain’t in this room, that’s certain. He may have passed over the range while you’ve been gabbin’ here. If he has, he’s bled to death, mebbe, fo’ lack of help, it’s up to you, Buck Stetson! You an’ yore li’l star and yore gun! Hell!”
Pringle’s voice held such a measure of conviction that it startled Stetson into a moment’s slackness as he looked in puzzled fashion at his late partner with narrowed eyes. In that split second Jimmy leaped, clutching at Stetson’s wrist with both hands and cruelly twisting flesh, tendons, and small bones in his effort to make him drop the gun.
There was a loud report, then another, resounding in the low ceilinged room as Stetson struck furiously at Pringle’s jaw, then clinched with him, tripped him and the two went rolling over the floor, fighting for the possession of the weapon that Stetson still managed to retain.
There was a double sound of footsteps on the veranda, the click of a key in the lock, and added moonlight flooding the room as the door opened. Neither of them heard or noticed this. The gun went off once again, to be topped by a raucous voice.
“You couple of housebreakin’ fools, what in Time are you doin’ in here? Git up afore I plug the both of ye.”
They sat up, gasping for lack of breath and with astonishment. Titus Williams stood before them in the flesh. One hand held a rifle, the other grasped a shrinking figure, tall and lanky, vaguely suggestive in the moonlight of being in some way misshapen. Both Jimmy and Buck knew who it was, the gangling, nineteen-year-old son of Williams’ neighbor, Hansen, a youth with almost the growth of a man and the mind of a child of ten.
“We thought you’d been murdered.” The exclamation was mutual, simultaneous.